Chalkboard Drawings: The “Halloween Countdown, Part III” edition

As is my tradition every October, the chalkboard becomes a countdown to Halloween with some of the most famous ghouls in monster-dom. We went with modern monsters this week, more or less. The zombie was drawn for the premiere of The Walking Dead but I gave him that blueish pallor that George Romero outfitted his zombies with in Dawn of the Dead.

If you’re noticing a big name left out here, it’s because he made an appearance this past September 13th.

Unfortunately, I got a little messed up on the countdown but… I still like ‘em anyway.

Thrift Store Finds Hallo-Weekends: Ghostbusters comic books!

It’s three for the price of one on this second week of October. We’ll be looking three different Ghostbusters comic books published in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s.

These comics were purchased for me by my father last year in New Paltz, New York. Thanks Dad!

thrift store finds: how to win at nintendo games #2

This week we’re looking at How to Win at Nintendo Games #2 by Jeff Rovin, published by St. Martin’s Press in 1989.

Cover price was $3.95… I paid a quarter.

odds and ends: dinosaur dracula, comic pull list

One of my all-time favorite websites is X-Entertainment, a free-for-all tribute site to all the things that made my childhood rad. Updates to X-E have been sporadic in the past few years… but that promises to change with the advent of Dinosaur Dracula, X-E’s newly branded web address!

So far, Matt Caracappa has looked at Garfield and Friends fruit snacks, Fright Flicks trading cards, and my personal favorite, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cracker topper. X-Entertainment was surely an influence on my Thrift Store Finds posts, so I think anyone who likes those would truly love Matt’s writing. Check it out.

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We all know that I am something of a fan of the movies Alien and Aliens. I suppose you could say I had the misfortune of being born too late to see any of those movies in theaters- the only Aliens movies I’ve ever seen on the big screen have been muddled (Alien 3) botched (Alien: Resurrection) or just god awful (any of the Alien v. Predator movies, but I haven’t actually seen any of those).

Well, I’ve finally had the chance I’ve been waiting for last night; my most anticipated movie of the summer has to be Prometheus.

The “not a prequel” prequel to Alien, I was excited enough to see this flick that I broke free of my normal old man routines and went to a midnight showing. Even though director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Daniel Lindelof have been pretty straightforward, saying Prometheus is something new… I mean, c’mon. It’s an Alien movie.

…and I loved it. I loved it despite the cardboard cut-out characters. I loved it despite the gigantic plot holes. I loved Prometheus despite its’ structure, seemingly designed to infuriate the most nit-picky fans of this franchise. It’s a gorgeous movie worth seeing on the big screen.

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My current comic pull list is woefully small, and getting smaller by the month. Right now, these are the books I’m asking my fine comic retailer to put aside for me.

odds and ends

Although The Oscars were last weekend, Ellen and I are just now getting a chance to see many of the nominated movies as they are released on DVD. Last weekend, we took in Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen’s latest confection.

Ellen and I enjoyed it- it struck me that Allen was playing fantasy baseball with the great writers and artists of the 20th century, but in an enjoyable, funny way. I think this was aided by Owen Wilson’s lead performance.

Male leads in Woody Allen movies are often hidebound by Allen’s idiosyncratic writing style; most of the times, it seems like those characters exist as stand-ins for Allen himself. Sometimes this leads to actors just doing a stilted Allen impression, but Wilson goes above and beyond here. I thought he made the character of Gil Pender his own by infusing Allen’s dialog with some of his laid-back rhythms and line-reads. It’s sort of a great feat.

My only lingering problem with the flick were the portrayal of most of the female characters They seemed fo fall: into one of two categories: shrill and abrasive (Gil’s fiance Inez and her mother) or overly accommodating to the male protagonist (Gertrude Stein, Adriana, the women who runs the antique shop). The women in Midnight in Pars either exist to slow Owen Wilson’s character up and make him feel guilt… or to praise his abject genius to the hilltops. I thought this was lazy on Allen’s part, especially when we know how much better he can do at crafting roles for women.

I would try not to let that get in your way of enjoying Midnight in Paris though. It’s a beautiful looking movie though, lingering over a cinematic dream of Paris.

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My sister sent me an advanced copy of Derf Backderf’s My Friend Dahmer and it’s amazing. I’m already a fan of Derf’s work- his Punk Rock and Trailer Parks was the best comic I read in 2011 and My Friend Dahmer is on track for “Best of 2012,” at least so far. It’s a fascinating story. Jeffrey Dahmer is one of the most heinous serial killers ever known… and Derf went to high school with him. Further, he was friendly with Dahmer; they weren’t close, but for a time, Dahmer ran in Derf’s circle of friends as a kind of whacked-out mascot.

Derf’s artistic style is sort of hyper-cartoony and reminds me of some of my favorite underground/alternative comics… very appropriate for capturing the unbalanced nature of Dahmer’s teenage years. The author has clearly done his research, and fills out the book with heavily researched anecdotes and first-person accounts of the times where Derf wasn’t around.

Seriously, check it out- very awesome.

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Finally, I direct you to this blog post where Dan Aykroyd admits, once and for all, that Bill Murray will NOT be appearing in Ghostbusters 3.

I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand… I’m elated. I don’t hold high hopes for any Ghostbusters sequels and having Murray eschew the new ones will clearly draw a line in the sand between the old and the new. On the other hand, I’m bummed out that Murray won’t be in the movie… and that they’re even making the movie to begin with.

Seriously, although my gut reaction is “Why make the movie without Bill Murray?” I do understand why a new Ghostbusters movie will eventually haunt theaters. The property remains popular. Many of my students have and wear the “no ghosts” tee shirt.  Heck, Blues Brothers 2000 notwithstanding, I have a lot of love for Dan Aykroyd. Come back tomorrow to see just how much…

odds and ends

A grad school friend of mine sent me this link to Thirty Books Everyone Should Read Before They’re Thirty. I’ve never seen one of these list-articles I’ve ever entirely agreed with, but as I turned 30 this year, I thought this rated a look a look.

According to my own reading and the link above, I have read 21 of the 30 books worth reading before one turns 30. Of those nine misses, four of them (The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine, The Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin, and The Prince by Machiavelli) are all books I’ve read bits and pieces of in various college classes. It may not count, but goshdarnit, it should.

As with any “list” type article, there’s tons of room for debate. I would argue that The Wizard of Oz belongs on this list over The Wind in the Willows… but seeing as that’s exactly the type of conversation these things should inspire, I was glad of it.

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Last night, a couple of friends and I went and saw Ghostbusters on the big screen. The movie’s been rereleased and has been playing in select theaters throughout October.

If you read this blog for two weeks, you can be assured a reference to Ghostbusters. It’s a cornerstone of my childhood and I’ve easily seen the movie over 100 times on video, HBO, basic cable, and God only knows where else… but I have never seen it in theaters! In these woeful financial times, I was a little reticent about ponying up $10 bucks to rewatch a movie I know by heart… but I was pleasantly surprised!

Honestly, it was like seeing a whole different movie. The subtleties of the main actors’ work played SO much better projected on a huge screen. Even the smaller laughs were bigger. The next time I hear about a movie I love being rereleased, I’m not going to rationalize myself out of going to see it with owning it on DVD. Movies are meant to be seen that big.

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One final link: If you’re a child of the mid 1980’s/1990’s, I highly recommend going over to X-Entertainment and getting yourself in the mood for Halloween with the Halloween Countdown. Every year, Matt Caracappa spends the month of October gleefully pouring over the memories, the marketing, and the fun of Halloween in a daily blog which is required reading. X-Entertainment gives Christmas the same treatment and it’s become a yearly tradition for me.

chalkboard drawings: halloween edition, part one

It’s October! I always draw monster/spooky themed chalkboard stuff during this month.

odds and ends

Before I started using my job in my comics, I did a bog standard journal comic. Relationship woes, comics about my cat, lots of navel-gazing… if you’ve ever read one of the hundreds of journal comics out there, you know what I’m talking about. Occasionally I would get bored and do “Missed Connection Comics” based on the Craigslist postings wherein hopeful folks will post brief messages about people they barely met, in the hopes of running into them again.

If you enjoyed those comics, you will love the paintings of Sophie Blackall. 

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Last week, I wrote a fairly drippy obituary for my ability to enjoy television ironically, specifically the CW reality series America’s Next Top Model. I was being a tad maudlin when I wrote what I did, but I was also being honest. It bummed me out to find I no longer could experience ANTM in the same way I did years earlier.

I thought I’d never be able to crack wise at a silly television ever again… but thankfully, The CW came to my rescue with their new soapy drama Hart of Dixie.

Rachel Bilson is woefully miscast as a heart doctor forced by contrived circumstances to move from the hustle and bustle of New York City to the laid-back hills of Alabama. There’s a bitchy cotillion. There’s an alligator named Burt Reynolds. The first episode show made me laugh more than any situation comedy I’ve seen all year… and I don’t think it was supposed to be funny. The second episode (yes, I stuck around!) was a nice improvement on the ridiculousness… but still.

Thank you, CW. Thank you for disproving my sad thesis. I’ll be able to laugh at and not with Hart of Dixie for as long as its’ on the airwaves.

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I went to the comic store for the first time in about a month. Skipping September means I missed out on all the craziness of the DC Comics’ relaunch… but I’m more or less fine with that. The books I’m reading are not DC’s quick sell-out issues. I’m on the hook for Grant Morrison’s run on Action Comics and Scott Snyder’s Batman book. Besides that, I could be up for Swamp Thing and All-Star Western, if I could find a copy of the books… but alas and alack, they were nowhere to be had.

I wanted to quickly mention a book I picked up as a nostalgia read, but ended up enjoying quite a bit- IDW’s new ongoing Ghostbusters.

I don’t know if it is possible to recreate the tone of Ghostbusters in a comic. The movie so expertly blended horror and comedy with the very specific personalities and quirks of the actors who played the main characters. The handful of Ghostbuster comics I have read have been altogether too hung up on plot with an abundance of awkward likenesses of the main characters.

To be frank, no one’s going to accurately capture Bill Murray in 22 comic pages.

That being said, I believe IDW made a smart move in hiring Dan Schoening on art duties for this book. Schoening eschews photo-realism for a more cartoony style and the choice is a smart one. His slick designs of the four Ghostbusters put one in mind of an animated series take on the characters and those drawings really bring the fun into the book.

It’s a bit soon to tell about Erik Burnham’s story, although the writer is laying some groundwork here for the future which I can appreciate. I did love the first scene in the book, an extended dream sequence with Ray Stantz. Burnham does something quite interesting with this scene, using it as a recap page as well as teeing off the rest of the book. He also creates a really nice homage to John Belushi in these pages that needs to be read to truly appreciate.

In short, IDW and this creative team has me on the hook for the first arc of Ghostbusters. I was already a fan of the property, which makes me an easy get… but I feel that this book has the potential to be something really terrific for fans and casual readers alike.

chalkboard post 2010 – #8

I had to take this picture with my Mac’s Photobooth, as I left my cellphone at home this day… hence the backwards lettering.

…and Friday’s drawing was this picture of Kang and Kodos I posted a few days ago.

pearce family holiday drawings: halloween 2010

Every Halloween and Christmas, I draw a family picture for the holiday for fun. I usually post them on all the various social networking sites. It’s not teaching comics, but I thought I’d share this year’s with you all:

Oh, but there’s more!

I’m not a real artist or anything, but here are the original pencils for the Ghostbuster Halloween drawing.

At first, I drew Ellen as Janine, the Ghostbusters’ secretary as she looked in the cartoon The Real Ghostbusters. Ellen and Janine both have red hair, and Janine has a fun design that I thought it would add some variety to the drawing. Ellen rightly pointed out that she’s not getting to do much in this comic and that was weak. I decided it would be better if she and I were BOTH Ghostbusters. I think the final drawing is much more fun in that respect.